Former Infosys Manager from India Cites Discrimination Against Americans

A former Infosys manager from India who spent six years working in the United States on an H-1B visa has described an institutionalized pattern of discrimination against American college graduates recruited by the company. According to the former manager, the recruitment effort was put in place by Infosys's top management as a means of promoting a more culturally diverse work force, but has been systematically stymied by middle managers who want no part of any such inclusiveness.

The former manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity, worked at Infosys from 2000 to 2010. In 2008, he served on a panel that interviewed graduating college students in the United States as part of an ongoing recruitment drive initiated by "visionaries" among Infosys's top brass, including Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Narayana Murthy, to create a more inclusive work force. The former manager said he interviewed students from some of the most prestigious universities in the country, including the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, Boston University, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Syracuse and Purdue University.

Such a recruitment drive would yield 200 to 300 new employees, who would be sent to India for four months of classroom training, followed by about two months of work on an actual project in India. The new recruits would then be sent back to the United States, where they would be available to work on projects at Infosys's various client sites around the country. The problem, the former manager said, is that the recruits would just languish on the bench because the Indian account managers were convinced that the Americans would be unable or unwilling to conform to the Indian employment culture:

The utilization rate for these people was extremely low. Whenever there was a staffing need in the U.S., HR would say these U.S. employees were available, and the account management was absolutely dead set against that. The reason they always cited was, "This person doesn't have experience." Most of the people in India will be trained, they'll work in India for two to four years before they come to a client location in the United States. The way they devised the system is that the Americans only complete their [four months of classroom] training and do two months of project work in India, which is pretty much as good as nothing, and there are no development centers in the United States. So how on earth do you expect these people to have any kind of experience? But the real reason was the account management for the most part was just not comfortable having people from other nationalities [on their projects].

A key issue, the former manager explained, is that it's the norm for Indian workers in the United States to work all day on a project at a client site, and to then spend their evenings on the phone providing information downloads to their teams back in India:

It takes time to dump information and resolve issues with a team of 10 people sitting 9,000 miles away. [The account managers] were convinced that no Americans would be willing to do that. If they had an American on the project who wasn't willing, that would disrupt the model. So on the pretext that the Americans had no experience, the real reason was they just didn't want to have any non-Indian employees, because you can ask Indian employees to do all that stuff. What drives it is that there are people in India who are willing to come to the United States. If [an Indian employee in the United States is] unwilling to do [everything that's expected], there are five other people in India who are willing to do it. So [the account managers say to any Indian who is unwilling,] "Take the next flight back. It's a little bit of an inconvenience with the transition, but no big deal. We'll live through it."

The Americans, meanwhile, are just left to sit on the bench, and the vast majority leave the company within a year. According to the former manager, if 300 people were recruited, there would likely only be around 20 left a year later. He didn't hide his regret for having played a role in the deception:

I was interviewing them, and I was telling them all the great stuff they would be doing at Infosys. I felt so bad, because I was lying to them. They're going to join Infosys, and nothing of that sort is going to happen. Obviously when you work for a company and you're on the interview panel, you can't go up to a person and say, "Hey, you know what? I'm lying to you. This is a terrible company, so don't join it." I can't say that.

It is the culture in most of the IT job not that Americans don't do it. I work with Americans and everyone work on weekends on need basis and if your project is poorly managed it is norm to work 50hrs+ on weekly basis. With fear of losing job every one work extra with zero benefits in putting such efforts.

This is part of text in my company policy "The FLSA guarantees the payment of an overtime premium to covered employees equal to one-and-one-half times the regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in any one work week. Certain categories of employees are exempt from the payment of overtime. The Company classifies its employees as overtime-eligible or overtime-exempt based on a good faith understanding of their duties and responsibilities. It is Company policy to follow all government regulations governing deductions from the salary of exempt personnel."

This has to be stopped by making sure IT work is also part of 'non-exempt' so that companies don't exploit resources. I work for American company and most of my colleagues are Americans but everyone of us on average work minim 110%+ hours per week with zero extra payments. I don't see any difference between Indian or Americans in terms of working extra hrs to make sure his/her job is safe.

PS: Last month alone I had put 250hrs+ in place of 160hrs with zero penny extra payment...all because of poor bidding (that too fixed price bid...) by some idiot and everyone of us paying for his/her stupidity for past 1year.

This is nothing to do with any culture...it has to do with companies greed. I work for American company (owned and operated by White guy) with just 150+ employees. IT resources are exempted from over payment as per law, so you have zero rights receive extra payments unless you are a contractor.

Below is the company policy on overpayment, I'm working with my employer for past 3yrs and never ever received overtime payment so far but every month there is x or y reason I had to work extra hours.

"The FLSA guarantees the payment of an overtime premium to covered employees equal to one-and-one-half times the regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in any one work week. Certain categories of employees are exempt from the payment of overtime. The Company classifies its employees as overtime-eligible or overtime-exempt based on a good faith understanding of their duties and responsibilities. It is Company policy to follow all government regulations governing deductions from the salary of exempt personnel."

When media keep projecting that "Americans are lazy" what else you can expect? Below news claims Americans are more obese so they are less productive...after reading this kind of news any normal person will have biased opinion about Americans or obese person and they tactically reject those candidates.

The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent, while the incidence of extreme or "morbid" obesity (BMI above 40) has risen sixfold, to 6 percent. The percentage of overweight Americans (BMI of 25 to 29.9) has held steady: It was 34 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 1961. What seems to have happened is that for every healthy-weight person who "graduated" into overweight, an overweight person graduated into obesity.

Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight. The most obese men take 5.9 more sick days a year; the most obese women, 9.4 days more. Obesity-related absenteeism costs employers as much as $6.4 billion a year, health economists led by Eric Finkelstein of Duke University calculated.

>> PS: Last month alone I had put 250hrs+ in place of 160hrs with zero penny extra payment...all because of poor bidding (that too fixed price bid...) by some idiot and everyone of us paying for his/her stupidity for past 1year. <<

Won't be me.

Work an hour then paid an hour. Unless of course I was the idiot that made the fix price bid.

>> Below is the company policy on overpayment, I'm working with my employer for past 3yrs and never ever received overtime payment so far but every month there is x or y reason I had to work extra hours. <<

I don't work for free.

The Americans that say "enough is enough" usually get a slight severance or a better one after training their H1B replacements. At one job, management told us "We are going to get H1Bs because they are willing to work 168 hours a week and are a lot cheaper"

Americans are certainly capable of breaking the law, no doubt about it. But you also cannot ignore the differences in culture. Things we consider taboo (discrimination for example) aren't as taboo elsewhere. That doesn't mean discrimination doesn't happen here, it does. Just that there is a greater social stigma.

As to labor rights, the differences are stark. Culture differences or not, the law is less ambiguous and clearly India is far more permissive when it comes to labor practices we have outlawed here.

As to overtime pay, the ITAA (now TechNet) lobbied to exempt computer workers from OT and classify us as management under the FSLA decades ago. Our profession is weak when compared against other professions. Realtors put us to shame; the NAR is very strong. Some members of our profession think it is cool they are considered management (math not their strong suit, so maybe they should be in management).

We have groups like the IEEE-USA and Programmers Guild but membership in any professional association is extremely low among IT professionals. No self-respecting realtor would dare forget to keep their NAR membership active, and as a result they are far better represented.

I think what we really need is a benefactor who will start an organization off right. Hopefully Jay Palmer makes a ton of money from Infosys and decides to invest back in the profession that shunned him. If I had $10M free and clear, I would start hiring staff and launch a professional group based in DC - bringing in some real movers and shakers. I always hoped someone like Wozniak would do something like that since he is the engineer's engineer. I doubt the Gates Foundation would fund that, but who knows. Someone with money is going to eventually decide to create a legacy and do something that will help generations to come in our profession.

As an international student, I was given orientation by my international student adviser about American culture, the law, the social responsibility as a resident, diversity and the importance of paying taxes. This I believe helped me fit it when I started working...unfortunately I don't see this happening with workers deputed by the off shore firms.

Oh, yeah, let's roll back a century of labor rights progress and re-define "diversity" to mean "more young South Asian males." Those of us who encountered their contempt up close and personal are not surprised by the attitudes described here.

This is absolutely true. Even today, deputees including I at some point in my worklife with Infosys are being threatened that you will be packed off to offshore (India) if you are not taking calls. It is not that people are not willing to take calls. The calls are in addition to the regular work day of atleast 10 - 11 hours.

Apart from these, you have to make yourself available for pre-sales activities to prepare Request for Proposals etc., The difficult part of this is, all of these extras are added to your performance measure in addition to being billable for 100%. If you don't do it, your performance measure will go down and obviously a poorer rating.

Earlier this used to happen for everyone, now since Mangers (Project Manager and Senior Project Manger level) are exempt they are playing around with the lives of these folks. Just to be on the safe side, the billable utilization will be kept at 80% (in the system). If you are out on bench, within 2 days they will be asked to pack off to a different location or to India. However, during the appraisal you will be dinged for not doing the aditional work inspite of being billable for 100%.

I am aware of an account in Southern California where they abuse workforce to do extra work especially during the transition (where they picked up work from another vendor)... I personally am aware of large scale overtime abuse but kept quite since I am aware of the lack of Whistleblower protection (Jack Palmer's case never surprised me). In fact, post Jack's case, I blew the whistle on a Harasser who was being protected inspite of being given guilty. They relented and punished him, know what he was sent to India that's it

In fact they label technical people as managers (even though their peers that are int he same designation are called differently) to bill at a higher rate much against the LCA provisions.

Very interesting comments from the former Infosys manager. We are bumping up against serious cultural differences - from worker rights to discrimination. On discrimination, India is us 60 years ago - they make no bones about it. On worker rights India is us 100 years ago.

It's a developing nation. Most of this is expected. The real question should be "what do we do about it?"

We must require that all nations operating on US soil respect our cultural norms. But why would they when violating labor rights amounts usually goes unpunished and unreported? It pays to break the law. If you could make millions breaking a law, and the downside were the remote possibility of a slap on the hand, wouldn't you break the law?

The government is certainly more aggressive now when it comes to violating the law than during the Bush administration when it was the wild-west, but justice is usually too little too late most of the time.

If you are working at a company or divison that is "H1B infested" then you as an American are prerejected from employment and your career is likely over. Keep your mouth shut and try to get the best severance package possible as you are likely going to be training your H1B replacement.

would come tumbling down. They are desperately trying to adjust to the new normal of no more visa fraud.They are still not inclined to hire Americans. They try to hire as many indians as possible who do not require sponsorship (like myself) because they think that we would be more loyal to them. BULLOCKS!!! When I joined, out of the batch of around 30 new US recruits, around 3 or 4 were only Americans (the existing HR are all Americans strangely except for three four folks). It's simply because you can't do no crap with Americans. They got those two round thingies if you know what I mean. Infosys revenue guidance hit last quarter had everything to do with their visa complications - all their visa applications are getting rejected left and right. I've already said that they are hiring a lot more locally. They regularly have requests to employees for referrals for folks who don't need sponsorship. You can bet they are hoping that Indians will refer their Indian friends from other body shops. When Infosys can't fill positions with people they bring from India, then they are forced to hire locally and hiring people locally are a lot more expensive. Further, when Infosys delays in sending a body for a particular contract position, some other recruiting agency will send a worker - mostly an American because no one wants to deal with a visa holder except these body shops. Oh, and yes, that's who Infosys competes with most of the time - small recruiting agencies. Feel free to ask me anything about this glorified body shop. I'll explain away from my knowledge and experience with them. Yeah, I'm gone rogue. Worst thing that can happen for an Infosys manager. I also have my own opinions on what America should to do completely reform this skilled visa program thingie because of what I've seen. It's not too complicated or hard. It just requires some dedication and honesty. The immigration folks are already getting paid for each application and a majority of them get rejected anyway so let them use that money for revamping their processes and scrutiny for visa applications.Okay, Alfred calling me. Next Reply

May 1, 2012 11:15 AMInfy US Exploiter (formerly Batman)
says:

The Batman works at Infosys now.

Got it?

Infosys is the new Arkham Asylum gone loose.Time to beat these clowns to pulp and send them back to their prison holes.

It's great that there is more scrutiny on the other glorified body shops like Infosys.I just wish there was even more on the others like Wipro, TCS and CTS.I don't know about Satyam and HCL and some other Indian companies since I don't have people there.

Anyway, since I work inside Infosys, I plan on spilling the beans on this corrupt organization that has no respect for local laws or its people.If anything has happened over the past one year, it's that they have seriously started taking a closer look at US laws thanks to Palmer.And I'm an Indian.That's how much I hate this crappy company Infosys.The only reason I joined this crappy company is because they became so desperate to hire more people onsite since all their visa applications back in India were getting rejected that they were willing to hire anyone that didn't require sponsorship.I already have my greencard so none of these dumb companies can push me around like they do with people who are hostage to their company's sponsorship.I was working for another company that sponsored me and they played by the rules, paid pretty good salaries and all that.I was pretty shocked though to see how body shops like Infosys treated their workers who they sponsored with peanut salaries and relocating them to new places in a whim.Even though I was aware about everything Infosys, the only reason I joined was that they agreed to my outrageous salary demands and my demand not to be relocated anywhere. understood they were pretty desperate when they agreed to everything I was asking for without a second question.They were so desperate that when they told that 15% of my salary would be variable pay, I jacked up my base pay requirement to match that variable pay and they agreed to it.To be fair, they did have a good 2 hour technical interview and I enjoyed it.

So here are some of my pointers on this glorified body shop:

EXPLOITING FRESHERS

Infosys is known to force it's employees in India to work anywhere between 12 to 14 hours.It depends on your manager and somehow they get managers to have this mindset that 12 hours is the norm.They have huge campus recruitment programs where every year they hire around thousands of college grads (usually engineers or students with some technical qualification) and put them through an IT training program - it could be a training program on Java technologies, Microsoft technologies, Oracle DBA, Mainframe/COBOL etc.Sounds good but you don't get to pick and choose - they just randomly allot you to these training programs.I know about these training programs only from what I've heard from freshers and from what I've heard, they are pretty rigorous and could fail you so you're expected to get good grades and all that.

Now the worst part is even if you were a top ranker in your engineering college, you end up in the same level once you finish the training program - as a lousy production support guy or someone doing menial tasks like manual testing and documentation.In short, you are pushed as an additional body to assist with the lousy parts of client projects.The client won't even know this generally because it proves the inemptness of the existing team, the planning or the management.Yeah, I know everyone starts small but these are qualified engineers from different streams (not just Computer science but Electrical, Mechanical, Electronics etc) who join Infosys with high expectations and promises of working in top notch technologies only to end up wasting their career or ending up in a rote. Reply

May 1, 2012 11:15 AMInfy US Exploiter (formerly Batman)
says:

After many years of knowing this part of Infosys, I do in a way blame college grads for falling for the hype and not doing their own due diligence.I know many college grads who were top notch in their schools and colleges only to get so frustrated from being pushed from bench to lousy work to bench and back 'n forth as extra bodies for a project till they called it quits and went for either higher studies (since that was the only thing they were qualified for) or if they were lucky, to find another job with their 2 years wasted doing nothing (Infy makes you sign a one year bond before the training so you're stuck anyway).

Here is another thing that stupid companies like Infosys do which you won't hear on the news - they bloat up their resumes of these freshers to make them look like atleast 4 year experienced guys.Companies like Infosys have huge recruitment drives for freshers because they come cheap and once their resume is bloated up, they can be billed at senior level rates.The reason people have to work 12 to 14 hours is precisely because they are learning a lot on the job.I mean, think about it - do you think any client - banking, financial, aviation, oil 'n gas, healthcare etc will ever contract a position to a consulting/outsourcing company for a college grad????If you've been in the IT industry for atleast 2 months, you would know that's a straight up NO WAY.

EXPLOITING THE VISA SYSTEM

====================

EXPLOITING B1-Visas

-

I need not explain the B1 visa fraud that Infosys heavily indulged in thanks to Palmer.But this has been systemic.It's in no official "policy" as Infosys cleverly made mention but it was pretty much a "practice" as they have cleverly avoided mentioning.Yes, Business B1 visas are a lot easier to get and a lot cheaper with less scrutiny.So naturally these crooks evolved into misusing visas (which is another side business for Infosys -a immigration agency).They would send workers on three month roles to work on client projects, come back and then send them again or send someone else whenever required.They pay the business visa holders peanuts in the form of daily stipends while they charge the clients and usually these are fixed bid so these are paid lump sum for a specific duration.Palmer has correctly identified all the fraud that happens with the B1 visa system.

EXPLOITING H1-B visas

-

But what about the H1-B visa?

This is also thoroughly misused.Take a look at all the LCAs (Labor Condition Applications) applied for?They are all for junior or level 1 programming/analysts positions where salaries requirements are pretty low - in the range of 50K to 65K.You would have a few LCAs in other positions with higher salary requirements (of late, they have been applying for more costlier LCAs for senior level positions which have salaries starting at 80K to 90K but these are only because of all the visa scrutiny coming from immigration).In short, Infosys would bring in senior level techies such as senior software engineers, module leads, technical leads on junior level LCAs.The workers coming from India wouldn't know anything about the cost of living in the US and would be happy with any USD salary from Infosys as the instant conversion that happens in your brain is always 5 to 10 times more than what you make in India since India has a lower cost of living in absolute terms.

EXPLOITING L1 VISAs

-

What about the L1 visa?

No salary requirements for L1 visa - any guesses what Infosys will do with these types of visas? Reply

May 1, 2012 11:16 AMInfy US Exploiter (formerly Batman)
says:

Especially when they bring in people for short term (3 to 6 months)???.

You see, Infosys treats salary different for those who go on short term and those who go on long term since people on long term have to eventually pay rent, get a car and all that.

IGNORING QUALIFIED AMERICANS

======================

The original post from Don was about how Infosys managers ignore qualified Americans especially the ones that they themselves have trained.The reasons are explained by the whistleblower who Don recieved this information from.But here is some more insight.

When I joined Infosys in a senior position, many candidates were regularly referred to me for interviews and placing at projects.I would talk to candidates from India who were already here, candidates from India who were to brought here through their visas and rarely, I would actually talk to Americans.To be fair, all the people I talked to were good enough for the positions I was to qualify them for.My job was to interview and analyses their skill to see if they would be good for client interviews and projects.So I would return with feed back to the managers who reached out to me on any candidate referred to me.

For some reason, I would feel deep inside that the Americans should be placed first because I always noticed long bench terms on their Infosys resumes with areas of work that were unrelated to what would really make them demanding in the market through real hard skills. They had the required college qualifications (BS in CS), trained in Infosys, Bangalore then followed by strange, long bench terms or work on lousy stuff like administration or handling offshore teams etc with nothing core technical.I would see some relevant experience interspersed here and there but I would tell them to brush up on stuff and guide them on how to prepare for a particular project.All the referrals I made for Americans were ignored while the referrals I made for Indian visa holders already in the US were followed up where ever possible though a few were ignored because it fell through with the client.My job was not to say whether one should be brought to the US or not - my job was to only analyses people if they were technically sound for a particular project.

Knowing American and Indian culture pretty well, I know why any Indian Infosys manager wouldn't want to work an American to work under him - just take a look at Palmer.If you try to play crap with a person who has no dependency with Infosys, you can expect to get crap back.That's what happened with Palmer.You see, in the US - there are laws.You can't work more than 8 hours and the mindset of people is to keep work separate from home (unless you are management).In India, it's totally different.Home is only for sleeping.You are in the office the rest of the weekday.Infosys expects all its employees to be glued to their work wherever they are.In the US, that means coming back home and attending to non-client stuff or working with the offshore team.If you don't, then you will hear the same stuff Palmer heard - "not a team player" and blah blah blah.

They tried this crap with me and I tell them each time to shad ap and get lost.It's easy for me to say that unlike those who are hostage to their sponsors because frankly the market for technies is pretty hot and I can quit this company any day with three offers waiting.They tried to get me to do additional stuff, manage other projects and offshore teams and all after work hours and my response is the usual - "no". Reply

May 1, 2012 11:16 AMInfy US Exploiter (formerly Batman)
says:

You take that crap somewhere else got that you lame infosys manager?I work 8 hours and not a minute more unless I chose to.So I'm not exactly the kind of worker they would want here in the US.

See, Infosys is nothing but a glorified body shop.They send bodies to client locations and get paid by the hour or fixed bid.I get billed for 8 hours so infosys makes money out of me for 8 hours so I'm not going to work a single minute beyond that if I don't get paid over time.Yeah, that's right.Besides, the client is happy with my work, Infosys gets paid, I get paid and we're all happy.That's the way it should be and life goes on.But not with Infosys!they need to milk you even more.That's when they have all these stupid practices of having people work additional stuff after work hours.

CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS

==================

Here's what you should know about Infosys' current state of affairs:

They are totally freaked out by this lawsuit because if their "immigration agency" business crumbles, then their whole business crumbles simply because they outbid everyone on cheap rates.Remember?Yeah, TOTALLY FREAKED OUT.They won't show their shock and awe to the media because their stocks would come tumbling down.They are desperately trying to adjust to the new normal of no more visa fraud.

They are still not inclined to hire Americans.They try to hire as many indians as possible who do not require sponsorship (like myself) because they think that we would be more loyal to them.BULLOCKS!!!When I joined, out of the batch of around 30 new US recruits, around 3 or 4 were only Americans (the existing HR are all Americans strangely except for three four folks).It's simply because you can't do no crap with Americans.They got those two round thingies if you know what I mean.

Infosys revenue guidance hit last quarter had everything to do with their visa complications - all their visa applications are getting rejected left and right.I've already said that they are hiring a lot more locally.They regularly have requests to employees for referrals for folks who don't need sponsorship.You can bet they are hoping that Indians will refer their Indian friends from other body shops.When Infosys can't fill positions with people they bring from India, then they are forced to hire locally and hiring people locally are a lot more expensive.Further, when Infosys delays in sending a body for a particular contract position, some other recruiting agency will send a worker - mostly an American because no one wants to deal with a visa holder except these body shops.Oh, and yes, that's who Infosys competes with most of the time - small recruiting agencies.

Feel free to ask me anything about this glorified body shop.I'll explain away from my knowledge and experience with them.Yeah, I'm gone rogue.Worst thing that can happen for an Infosys manager.

I also have my own opinions on what America should to do completely reform this skilled visa program thingie because of what I've seen.It's not too complicated or hard.It just requires some dedication and honesty.The immigration folks are already getting paid for each application and a majority of them get rejected anyway so let them use that money for revamping their processes and scrutiny for visa applications.

Thanks Don for posting this. Good to see that somebody has consious to feel bad for whatever bad he was doing, which is very unusual from Infosys Manager class. But it is fraction of unethical practises and work culture they have. Moreover, Managers in Infosys are very confident that they can get away with whatever they do.

Right now they are facing resourcing issue because of high attrition and VISA problems, but they are even able to manage by lying employees in the competitior company. By the time, the new employee reliazes that he/ she has been cheated and leaves the company they have other new hires in the line as replacement.

The point I am trying to make is that nothing much is going to happen to them. They had US senators as their board of directors in the past or may be having them now also. At the most they will not grow as they have grown in the past because quality of people joining them won't be good. The change can only happen when the client themselves stops giving work to Infosys. When Companies question their directors and SVPs who are still favouring Infosys despite of having issues in their deliverables.

Not just Infosys, even TCS Wipro Cognizant HCL operate in the same fashion. Personally having worked with both Infosys and Cognizant in the US. I can completely vouch for the labor laws abuse at these two Indian firms. After leaving cognizant I joined a mid-sized Indian IT firm in the US and have been leading a much better and more happy life for the past 3 years. These companies are facing serious visa issues and I am happy to see that happen. Infact I believe Infosys should be banned for applying ay kind of US visa for next 3 years. Then these companies will realize the importance of little things in life. Because of visa problems nowadays these companies are unable to make the same statement -

If unwilling to do , there are five other people in India who are willing to do it. So "Take the next flight back. It's a little bit of an inconvenience with the transition, but no big deal. We'll live through it."

Sorry Account managers but you now its a big deal for crooks like you.

Thank you Don for providing more documentation regarding the corrupt nature of the controversial H-1B Visa legislation. Unless a person is in a technical field and has had their future stolen by the actions of the greedy economic elite (both in the U.S. and India) they have no idea what is actually happening. People outside technical fields tend to believe the oft-repeated propaganda that there is a "shortage" in those fields, failing to understand that the shortage is only of individuals willing to work for very low wages so that corporate profits are maximized.

Investigative researcher Eric Weinstein, Ph.D. found documentation from the late 1980s that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recognized that citizenship opportunities were valuable to young people from developing world nations and were of no value to American citizens. The young people from the developing world would accept low wages in exchange for U.S. citizenship opportunities. The NSF actively lobbied for the passage of the 1990 H-1B Visa legislation as a way to maximize employer-interest economic benefits. The NSF appears to be indifferent to the economic harms that middle-class Americans have endured as a consequence of being pitted in an economic race against the world's poor. It is no surprise that Americans are losing in this competition.

Having a US senator on its board does not mean that Infosys managers can commit the kind of crimes they usually do.

Also with 2012 being an election year and that too with such an anti-immigrant stance across America, including that of president obama, I strongly feel that

these so called Senators or other political people connected with Infosys will hardly support Infosys.

Nobody would want to lose his/her position in the US parliament on account of supporting a foreign firm Infosys.

But for all this to happen the news of Infosys visa fraud should be more widespread such that it takes a national level attention in the US.

After correspondent Miller's interview with Jay palmer the entire B1 visa fraud episode has definitely taken a bigger picture in last 2 weeks.

Earlier the matter was more like buried but now you see more websites carrying Infosys fraud information. You can also see newspapers carrying articles on it. And also the Infosys management has itself communicated the visa fraud matter to shareholders, albeit in a lighter tone.

So all said and done isn't Infosys stage set to burn. The fire has just started to spread.

The US streets are no longer paved in gold and the Indians have figured it out. The Indians that are coming over to the US for a job are the ones that can't find a job in India. Talk to a top recent IIT graduate and they won't put up with the nonsense of working 168 hours a week for an H1B salary anymore.

The Indian inflation rate is officially 9% but much likely closer to 20% in reality and a LARGE part of that is due to the Indian government insistence on keeping the rupee to dollar exchange rate in the neighborhood of 50 to 1. India can do that by simply printing more rupees. India has no foreign market of significance for its debt so printing more rupees leads to higher inflation. The result is that Indians working in the US sending dollars home are providing less and less support to relatives as time goes on. The illegal immigrants sending money back to Mexico are starting to go back for the same reason as when they work the money that they send home is not going very far.

And the problem is likely to get a LOT WORSE as the Indians receiving the dollars (along with the Chinese) are starting to SPEND them buy buying gold or purchasing other NON DOLLAR assets.

The job prospects are so much better in India than in America for Indians and the Indians have figured that out.

Batman, you are a credit to our country as well as the nation of your birth and I'm proud to call you an American. Please consider turning in that GC for citizenship, we need more people like you. Your post has restored my faith in our immigration system. Every time I get depressed about visa abuse I remind myself that once people get here they will start to turn into Americans. Yes! Keep up the good work and fight the good fight.

And I am also willing to join Infy US exploiter after my GC is done with. On H1B i cant do much but to tolerate all nonsense. I have worked with Infy in the past and have somewhat similar experience as Jay Palmer did. The only difference is that I had to resign and he did not.

"to create a more inclusive work force" - this is all hog wash. If they want inclusive workforce and want to hire freshers locally, where is the onsite development center that these people can work at? They just want to place them at client locations and get them billed from day 1. Clients will not agree for such BS. If you starting out with such mindset, then all this local hiring BS will come a cropper. If they had the intention of hiring locally, then it would not have taken all the hullaboo to even start thinking on those terms. Even when they say that they will hire, rarely its in large number. If they really wanted to do the investment, they had the money and time. But not the willingness to do it.

I currently do this kind of work, so this one really hits me hard, but it is likely par discrimination for a company like InfoSys.

Getting up at 3AM to talk with offices/customers overseas is something americans can do, I have many times, and to be racially profiled and discriminated against (and so barred from these jobs) is really sick.

We are no different than our overseas counterparts in needing jobs and appreciating same. And there is no genetic reason why Americans are not capable of doing this kind of work, many do.

Clearly this is just a lousy excuse to exclude U.S. citizens from full participation in U.S. opportunities, at InfoSys. And apparently to reserve jobs on U.S. soil for people from one particularly country.

You know there have been times in my life where I have held 3 jobs, got by with little or no sleep. Americans are a hard working bunch of sycophants, even without employer or even economic (I lived at home in my twenties, when I was working 3 jobs) reasons.

Once I stayed up for 3 straight days to get software tested and approved.

Clearly a message needs to be sent to these companies to stop actively discriminating against U.S. citizens for jobs on U.S. soil, if you want the privilege to use our Government Visa programs.

Thank you for this inside view. Everything you have said fits in with what I had inferred about Infosys and other such body shops.

As you have confirmed, visa abuse being a systemic one, despite Infosys lame claim that it was isolated. As with all such fraudulent schemes, Infosys undoing was that they became dependent on weaseling around the laws to maintain their profit margins and headcount in the US. The bigger picture is that their manipulations have also laid bare the truth of what all the other companies in the same market space are doing.

No American is going to be allowed to have the access Palmer had. I'm sure there are no Americans in active positions similar to Palmer's at Infosys now ?

>>No American is going to be allowed to have the access Palmer had.I'm sure there are no Americans in active positions similar to Palmer's at Infosys now ?

Ofcourse not!!!They will never ever give any American the kind of access Palmer had whatever that was.They have Infosys laptops.I wouldn't be surprised if they were rigged and had kill switches in them.

Palmer seems to have been working in a senior consultant role or "Principle Consultant" which means he was regularly facing customers and his job was to let them know that Infosys was the next best thing since sliced bread.When I joined Infosys, I thought I could hit him up and see if Commissioner Gorden was doing a good job or whether the justice league needed to get involved.Man, I could'nt even find him on the Infosys directory....they've removed all references to the man.Not a trace.

I know another "principle consultant" and he is in a senior role and a very charismatic fellow with a technical background.Essentially these principle consultants are supposed to convey how great Infosys is and they've got enough technical background to not sound like they're BSing around. They talk RFPs (Request For Proposals) and other deal and delivery related stuff with the client.If he is someone that they brought from the US to India, then I'm sure he must have been in an important client facing role.I think Infosys had high aspirations to use him as their face to clients.

I don't know what kind of elevated access he might have had and I don't know what kind of documents he's retrieved but I'm sure that since he was important enough to bring to India and sign letters and documents and they had great "aspirations" for him, he definitely had a lot more access than regular tech guys like myself.There are two types of folks in these kinds of companies that deal with clients and bring in money - the worker ants or billable guys like me and the management guys (Delivery Managers, CRMs, Principle Consultants, Unit Heads etc) who work with clients to strike deals that bring in worker ants like me that bring in money.The management guys obviously have more access to project related finances, resources, policies and all. That's the kind of access that Palmer might have had.Again, keep in mind that you won't find "policies" or any illegal or unethical stuff written down in any official documents.These kinds of companies are too careful on that...what you can expect are people dumb enough to have instructed things that are questionable on email or work related discussions with people who came on B1 visa.Palmer had an Infosys laptop and all his emails should have been downloaded locally and that is probably where most of his evidence is.That's why Infosys is desperate to get that laptop back.

And in the US, there are very few Americans at the higher levels of some departments from what I observed.When I joined the company, one of the senior HR guys was an American and there were two three Americans in smaller roles.The guy who was supposed to have handled Palmer's whistle blower complaint Paul GotSomeWierdLastName was an American too remember?Wasn't there some other American who spoke to the media stating that Palmer is lying and in it for the money?Anyway, we can be sure that they have good salaries and stock performance related packages so they'll think twice before double crossing Infestedsys.When I look at all the business units - all the senior folks in 3 to 4 level org charts are Indians with a few Americans here and there. Reply

I'm sure after the Palmer incident, the business unit heads who make important business level decisions have warned between themselves to watch out for Americans or anyone who are the most dangerous to their business - law abiding citizens. Reply

Thanks. I sincerely wish things weren't the way they were. When I first came to the US, the person at the immigration counter in the Airport sounded like a Jamaican "JAH MAAAN!" the cops and other officials were white, black, hispanic and asian and when I reached the hotel, I heard a person on the street switch between Arabic and English and the guy at the hotel counter was of Indian origin. America is truly the melting pot of the world.

Yeah, that's right! Even the Batman comes in through that golden door even though I could simply glide through using some visa fraud. I hate it when people don't try to use America's generosity in good faith and instead abuse and misuse it.

>>citizenship opportunities were valuable to young people from developing world nations and were of no value to American citizens.<<

How true! Why else would people from developing countries risk life and limb to cross the border or pay anything to reach these shores.

I wish American kids knew how blessed they are to be born in this country where all the basic values and frameworks for a successful life are handed to them and didn't ignore them or take it too lightly. If some of them cut down on the time they spent watching football or American idol and desperately stupid house wives, they would be able to get out of their county and see the rest of the world for what it is. That initial 25 years of your life where you work hard and value everything you've been given will prepare you for the rest of your life....atleast that's what hard life has taught some of us from less fortunate places.

Thank you Don for providing more documentation regarding the corrupt nature of the controversial H-1B Visa legislation. Unless a person is in a technical field and has had their future stolen by the actions of the greedy economic elite (both in the U.S. and India) they have no idea what is actually happening. People outside technical fields tend to believe the oft-repeated propaganda that there is a "shortage" in those fields, failing to understand that the shortage is only of individuals willing to work for very low wages so that corporate profits are maximized.

Investigative researcher Eric Weinstein, Ph.D. found documentation from the late 1980s that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recognized that citizenship opportunities were valuable to young people from developing world nations and were of no value to American citizens. The young people from the developing world would accept low wages in exchange for U.S. citizenship opportunities. The NSF actively lobbied for the passage of the 1990 H-1B Visa legislation as a way to maximize employer-interest economic benefits. The NSF appears to be indifferent to the economic harms that middle-class Americans have endured as a consequence of being pitted in an economic race against the world's poor. It is no surprise that Americans are losing in this competition.

To understand the massive scope of these corrupt policies, please review my just-published 6 page report, "How Record Immigration Levels Robbed American High-Tach Workers of $10 Trillion" Use Google to locate the article or use tinyurl dot com / 74cc64p (Remove the spaces and convert to a proper web address.)

Once you're done with that, read all the comments from people fawning over it and getting emotionally charged.

And then remember that this is from HCL which brings in tons of people on visas instead of hiring locally and whose CEO only a few years ago claimed that American grads weren't good enough.

Yeah, that's how ignorant the masses are. So easily moved by a commercial that appeals to their emotions. It's like something straight out of a Sigmund Freud book. Seriously. People don't think anymore? Gimme a break. oh no not you Bane NOOooooo don't break the battt! (www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_3ifWZxCVk&;feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLE8932DB9E93159F3).

" former Infosys manager from India who spent six years working in the United States" - six years..that gives it all out. This will be one such employee for whom the company did not process his GC because they did not see him fit enough or excel in his role. Now he is venting out his frustrations. Good going.

And looks like Don is again got into deleting posts that points out such things. Most of my previous comments on this blog are gone. Well done Don!

Once the big 7TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant, NIIT, and Birlasoftare exposed as the fraudsters they are, then we can get to the heart of another hidden truth: Indian IT has no special skill other than an army of cheap English-speaking brute force workers. Destroy the myth that these guys are in any way innovators.

Discrimination againstAmrican workers happens within Microsoft too and is not limited to Infosys. American workers often bad reviews and gradual termination while Indian workers are promoted or at least protected from termination. Many temporary employment agencies nowadays are companies like Wipro, Tata consultacy services, Collabera, etc. The popularity of companies like Volt, Excel, Robert Half International, etc seems to be weakening from time to time.

This is 100% true. But there is more to this than just simple discrimination. Not only are Americans discriminated against but also Indians who are recruited in the US as US employees.

Infosys goes beyond just simple discrimination. When interview and hiring employees in the US it actively seeks out Indians and hires them rarely hiring "local" Americans.

The working conditions in Infosys are extremely poor. There is no training or decent orientation for new employees, the managers who mostly live in India expect the American employees to work during the day and then spend 5-6 hours working with employees in India over the phone. This makes an average working day for an American employee between 13-16 hours.

Besides that Infosys "double dips" on H1-B visas. The employees on H1-B visas (which are for a specific employer and project) are routinely asked to work on other projects which of course is against visa rules. But then no one in INS cares.

Of course Infosys and other Indian companies can do this because of the poor employment conditions in the US and the continuing belief among American corporations that doing business in India is cheaper and better (both assumptions are false).

I've read posts on various job blogs over the years from job seekers of Indian origin who are U.S Green Card holders or citizens who get called for interviews by Indian outsourcing companies that abruptly rescind job offers on flimsy pretexts on discovering that the applicant does not need an H1 visa.

Yes. I totally agree with these comments. I am actually experiencing some thing like Jay. I have over 25 yrs US IT experience. Keeping US citizens on bench, bringing freshers from India without proper documentation, and putting them at on-site positions - simply astonishes me. I wish best of luck to Jay and Ken.

If you worked 25 years in IT and still are a programmer, do not expect your fellow Americans to touch you with a10 ft pole. You cannot stay at the lower rungs of a career for that long. This works the same for all professions. A 55 year old accounting clerk with 25 years of payables processing will be passed over by a 35 year old accounting clerk with just 5 years of experience. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT GROW OLD IN THE SAME JOB YOU HAVE BEEN DOING FOR YEARS WIHOUT ADVANCEMENT. Reply

Sep 11, 2012 1:51 PMIT Guy
says:

I've worked at various contracts within the IT business and can confirm all of the above posts. Additionally, I do not blame the worker bee Indians as I also would come to this country if I were in the same situation. The Indian managers are blatant racists (most of them) bringing their caste system and undermining of American IT workers. Large numbers of unqualified Indians do software consultanting with 'blown' up resumes. When working with them you realize quickly that they do not have the skills to be here taking an Americans job. There are some good ones too but no different than anyone else. Anyways, the Anti-Americanism in IT within our own country is rampant and nationwide. This is not anecdotal as I have worked at over 20 fortune 1000 companies and it is everywhere. Reply

Nov 11, 2012 10:21 PMniraj
says:

requirement gathering is work for business analyst (i.e. primary roles and responsibilities) then in B1 visa going for meeting (i.e. of any short) with client/part of your team in USA would be consider as working under B1 visa or not?
plz help me out with this friends.
Reply

There are major differences in the two cultures. First, lying is part of the Indian culture and they see nothing wrong with that. Second and probably most important, an American costs more. An American is typically proud of his work and will make sure he does a good job. An Indian could care less about quality or whether his work will blow up the company tomorrow. Indians just live for today and they can say 1000 lies to get by today. Nothing new really came out of IT in the past decade (like SAP or Internet, etc.) that would make a company more competitive. It is about maintaining what they have and having Indians maintain it costs much less. Indian business culture is all about low price and quality and value are ignored. And it seems that IT budgets of Fortune 500 companies are aligned with the Indian business culture nowadays. Reply

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